


Family Ties

by evilbutquestionably (questionablyevil)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, The Gaang Finds Out About Zuko's Lineage, they just don't know he's royalty until way later than in canon, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26429710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionablyevil/pseuds/evilbutquestionably
Summary: “Hey, Zuko! Have you ever met the Firelord?”That was not a question he had prepared himself for.Or: Zuko is the Firelord's son. This is Brand New Information to his friends.
Relationships: The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 1056
Collections: A:tla





	Family Ties

**Author's Note:**

> i kept seeing that headcanon going around tumblr that was like 'did Zuko not know Team Avatar's names before he joined up.' which is obviously gold but it made me think of when, exactly, Team Avatar realized they were being chased around the world by the Actual Fire Nation Prince and not just some random teenager who had a boat with people who listened to him for some reason. and then because my brain does this i went 'lmao what if they didn't though.' so we have this au.
> 
> this is set between the end of southern raiders and the beginning of ember island players even though they knew before this in canon i just wanted everyone to be friends first.

Zuko had been expecting a barrage of questions eventually. 

Frankly, he had expected them to start a lot sooner, the strategic ones especially. _What’s the layout of the palace like? Are there any secret entrances?_ Even the more...personal questions, he thought would start coming relatively soon after his arrival. _What made you decide to rebel? Why is your sister always trying to kill you?_ And then, once they had all warmed up to him, the inevitable _How did you_ really _get that scar, anyway?_ He told himself that he’d tell them anything they wanted to know, even if it was hard. They had welcomed him in, they told him they were his friends, even after he’d caused them all so much pain. If he had information that they wanted to know, personal or otherwise, he’d give it to them. He didn’t want them basing their thoughts on him off of rumor and conjecture.

So when Aang suddenly looks up from his bowl of rice and vegetables one night, eyes growing bright while looking at him from across the fire and opens his mouth to speak, Zuko braces himself for what he knew might not be the most _pleasant_ conversation.

“Hey, Zuko! Have you ever met the Firelord?”

That was not a question he had prepared himself for.

His good eyebrow shot up as he repeated the question incredulously. “Have _I_ ever _met_ the _Firelord_?”

Toph snorted. Oh, thank Agni, someone else knew how ridiculous it was to ask if the (once) heir to the Fire Nation throne had met his own father.

“Please. Just because he’s from the Fire Nation doesn’t mean he’s met their leader, Twinkle Toes. I mean, my family’s pretty prominent in the Earth Kingdom and it wasn’t like I started meeting world leaders until I tagged along with you. The Fire Nation only has one Lord, and whatever Zuko’s parents did that made him and Azula end up like that, I don’t think it exactly screams ‘people who are regularly invited to court.’”

Oh, the irony of that statement. 

Did - did none of them know?

Before he could shout something that would probably sound entitled out of context, like ‘ _Don’t you know who I am?!_ ’ Katara came to Aang’s defense.

“Hey! You never know!” And then she continued, a bit more doubtfully. “The Firelord thought his sister killed Aang, right? And then she was working as a bodyguard or something during the Day of the Black Sun? And before that he was in the navy. They could have met.”

Sokka rolled his eyes at his sister’s bias. “Zuko, tell them you’ve never met the Firelord so we can move on.”

Even Suki, who he sometimes felt could see into his soul and dig up even his deepest secrets when he was on the wrong side of one of her looks, didn’t seem to recognize the insanity of this conversation.

None of them knew.

Zuko started to laugh. This frightened the others, given his usual dreary disposition.

“See!” Sokka said triumphantly, completely misinterpreting his response. “Obviously he’s never met him. What a ridic-”

“Yeah.” Zuko said, getting a hold of himself. “Yeah, I’ve met the Firelord.”

Everyone turned to face him. Aang, his smile having dampened after Toph’s rather blunt rebuttal, brightened once again.

“Did you talk to him? What’s he like?”

Even Katara seemed doubtful that Zuko had actually talked to the Firelord, but it was Suki who voiced what everyone but Zuko and Aang were thinking. “They probably just met the one time, Aang. Like Katara said, he must have thanked Zuko after Azula…” she trailed off for a minute before finishing. “Whatever they talked about, it probably wouldn’t help us.”

Zuko couldn’t take it anymore. “Actually, I know him pretty well. I’m about as close as you can be to Ozai.”

He wasn’t lying. No one was _close_ to the Firelord. Not even Mother. Not even Azula.

He could see Sokka starting to ask a question, the puzzled looks between Suki and Katara, Toph’s downturned mouth. He decided to lay it all on the table. “He’s my father. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

You could hear a pin drop as five jaws hit the floor.

Sokka was the one to eventually break the silence. “Ha! Good one Zuko! I knew you had a sense of humor buried in there somewhere.”

“Sokka.” Toph said, as serious as he’d ever seen her. She could at least back him up. “He’s not lying.”

“And you got Toph in on it?!” Sokka continued, slapping his knee. “Oh man, that’s amazing, she really had us going!”

“Sokka.” Toph said, no room to argue. “I’m serious. He’s not lying.”

His laughter abruptly stopped as he joined the others in staring at Zuko.

“What?!” Sokka shouted and suddenly leaped from his seat, apparently causing everyone else to devolve into chaos.

“How?” that was Aang, somewhat nonsensically. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Oh great, Katara sounded mad again.

“ _Azula???_ ” Suki sounded panicked, which meant that she was three steps ahead of everyone else and realized that his sister was currently next in line for the throne. He could relate.

He tried to calm everyone down, before answering the easiest question. “I honestly thought you knew. I wasn’t exactly hiding it.”

“How could we possibly have known!” Sokka sounded frantic now. “Every week or so we’d run into you screaming about honor and capturing the Avatar, before you abruptly disappeared until you decided to help take over Ba Sing Se. We didn’t exactly exchange introductions.”

That made Zuko remember that first painful week at the Western Air Temple where he had to gather intel and pretend he knew everyone’s names. Wisely, he did not bring that up to the group. “You don’t know the names of the Fire Nation royal family? Didn’t that seem like relevant information to you? Considering you’re planning on taking them down?”

Katara spoke up. “Actually, we found a Fire Nation royal family tree that must have been pretty recent in Wan Shi Tong’s library. But we thought that the heirs’ names being Zuko and Azula was a coincidence.”

Zuko sent her a blank stare. “A coincidence.”

“Well, now it makes sense! But we figured your parents named you two after the heirs or something. You were both rather zealous in your love for your country. We thought that might have been passed down.” He heard her mutter ‘brainwashed’ under her breath, and he couldn’t even really be mad, because she wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Fine. Fine. What about my uncle then?”

All of them looked confused by that. “What do you mean?” Aang asked.

“His name is Iroh? General Iroh? Dragon of the West? Tried to conquer Ba Sing Se?” 

Sokka’s eyes widened. “Your uncle’s _that_ General Iroh?” 

Fearing a second round of shouting, Zuko responded instantly. “ _Yes_ , and again, how did none of you realize this?” He looked to Aang again. “What did you think I meant by ‘he has a complicated history’? Or that the…” he remembered that he couldn’t refer to the Sun Warriors by name to anyone but Aang, “ _you know who_ said my ancestors were directly responsible for the disappearance of the _you know what_.”

“Well, you only ever called him ‘Uncle’ in front of us. And I thought they just meant general Fire Nation ancestors, not specifically the people who called for the eradication of the...” he, too, remembered the rules and followed Zuko’s lead. “ _You know what._ ”

Zuko closed his mouth, mentally going over all of the times that he and their little group had clashed. Huh. He guessed he never had used his uncle’s formal title. Switching tactics, he said. “Okay. But I was sailing around on a Fire Nation ship, commanding a bunch of grown men. I’m sixteen. Didn’t you think there was some, I don’t know, nepotism involved there?”

After they all thought it over, at least here they looked a bit embarrassed. “I guess we never thought about it.” Katara spoke up. “I mean, Sokka and I were traveling around unsupervised with a twelve year old and his pet bison, and that was the first time either of us had left home. We maybe didn’t have the best perspective.”

“Yeah,” Sokka continued, rubbing the back of his neck. “And we didn’t know what age the Fire Nation navy started recruiting. Maybe if we thought about it you being in command would have been weird, but your Uncle was like, the oldest one on the ship. I think I figured he was in charge and just told everyone to listen to you.”

Zuko just stared at him. It was times like these where he was shocked and dismayed to remember that he had never gotten the upper hand on this group of children.

“Well.” Suki said, finally. “This makes sense, actually. Why you and your sister were so eager to serve the Fire Nation, please the Firelord.”

“We certainly didn’t see anything like it in the general population when we were visiting there.” Katara added.

Zuko nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. Kind of different circumstances for us.”

Everyone seemed to ponder the implications of this for a moment, before Sokka perked up. “Wait, does this mean you know a lot about the Capital? Maybe your dad’s weaknesses? Can you help me strategize?”

Zuko grinned at him. “I was wondering why you weren’t asking me that as soon as I arrived. I guess the whole...confusion explains that, at least.”

Sokka returned his grin. “Oh man, Ozai’s really not going to know what hit him, huh.”

He wondered if he should tell them that Ozai _absolutely_ knew what was going to hit him, considering Zuko told him exactly what he planned right before he left and got lightning shot at him as thanks. No, later. They had had enough excitement and revelations for tonight.

The group went back to their meals and ate in silence, all contemplating the previous conversation. After a moment, Aang met his eyes again over the fire, although his expression this time seemed much more puzzled.

“Wait, Zuko, if you’re the prince of the Fire Nation, why were you so close to the South Pole when Sokka and Katara found me? And why were you so convinced I was the Avatar when I hadn’t been seen in a hundred years?”

"Yeah." Toph piped up, "And doesn't the heir to the Fire Nation have a big scar?"

Zuko groaned.

Here we go.

**Author's Note:**

> zuko's just the 'you got me there' meme in human form when aang says he never refers to iroh by his title or name i just think that's very important for you to know if you didn't see it through the text.
> 
> i wrote this instead of the serious fic i started that involves like, worldbuilding and thought. you're welcome.
> 
> hmu on tumblr dot com if you're so inclined [anthonycrowley](https://anthonycrowley.tumblr.com/)


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